1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method, and a system for document conversion for converting document image data to an electronic document, a document processing apparatus, an information processing apparatus, and storage media that store programs for realizing the apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a number of digital technology-based functions have become incorporated into image forming apparatuses such as copiers. Some of them can serve as document conversion apparatuses having the ability to convert a scanned image to an electronic file and transmit the electronic file to another apparatus via a network. As those files which are subjected to conversion to electronic file, there can be mentioned simple image files such as TIFF format files, and document files of electronic document formats for word processors in which images are laid out on each entire page.
However, such a conventional document conversion apparatus needs to hold image data for all pages in a storage resource until the document conversion to a desired electronic document format is finished. When this kind of document conversion apparatus is incorporated into a machine that has a limited storage resource, a problem is posed that the need of increasing the capacity of storage resource results in increased costs, or the number of pages of an electronic document needs to be limited within the capacity of the storage resource of the machine.
Meanwhile, the next phase of document conversion apparatuses under consideration includes automatic generation of a table of contents or index from a plurality of pieces of image data for document pages, and conversion of the thus generated contents or index to an electronic document.
As an example of apparatuses that generate a table of contents, an image forming apparatus is known that performs character recognition on images of originals read in by a scanner, extracts headlines and page numbers of the originals from the recognized characters, and sorts the extracted headlines according to page number to thereby generate and print out an image of a table of contents (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H08-137909.) However, this kind of image forming apparatus, which generates an image of a table of contents and simply prints out the same, is not suitable for use as an electronic document generating apparatus.
An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus, a method, and a system for document conversion, a document processing apparatus, and an information processing apparatus that are capable of facilitating conversion of document image data to an electronic document having table of contents data even with a limited storage resource, and provide storage media for storing programs for realizing the apparatuses.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus, a method, and a system for document conversion, a document processing apparatus, and an information processing apparatus that can improve the usability of an electronic document that has a table of contents, and provide storage media for storing programs for realizing the apparatuses.